Regret and the absentee father

A friend of mine recently confided that she's in an emotional quandary about how to deal with the man she refers to as her "sperm donor." This man is her biological father but she has not seen him since the age of five. Her mother divorced him after suffering years of abuse and went on to marry a wonderful man who adopted my friend and raised her as his own.

Another family member has remained in contact with the "sperm donor" over the years and recently called with the news that he is dying. After years of alcohol abuse, his liver is in bad shape and he is now hospitalized. Of course, after ignoring his daughter's existence for 30 years, he now wants to make amends. He would like her to travel across the country to see him before he dies.

My friend's first instinct is to ignore his request and go on with her life. She doesn't feel she needs any closure with him and that any suffering he is enduring now is of his own making. I tend to agree with her and advised her that she shouldn't do anything she doesn't feel comfortable doing. She certainly doesn't owe him anything. But she and I both wonder how she will feel about her decision somewhere down the road, after he is gone. Regret can be emotionally devastating and the time will come when she cannot change her mind. Have any of you ever been in a similar situation? How did you deal with it and do you feel you made the right decision?

Father Of Ibragim Todashev Shares RegretsThe father of a Chechen immigrant shot dead by U.S. law enforcement agents while being questioned about his ties to a Boston Marathon bombings suspect said Thursday that he regrets allowing his son to go to the United States.

ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)

I had my first son when I was married to my first husband. I was very young and it only lasted a year. My husband adopted him when he was two and life went on. He moved to another state and I never saw him again. I never talked bad about him nor did my family. I told my son the truth as soon as he was old enough. When he was 15 he wanted to "meet" him so I arranged that. I felt as long as he asked, I had to help him. That meeting went "okay" but they didn't talk much after that. Things just pretty much went back to the way they were. We got a call that he was dying and wanted to see my son "one more time" so I arranged that as well. All it would have done to my son was make him feel bad had we talked "trash" about him and how could I want that? Isn't it about making your child feel good? I'm proud and glad to say that I "rose above" and did what I thought was the right thing and my son was with him when he died.Guilt is a bad thing to have to live with so this needs a lot of thinking. Your friend may think this way NOW but may change her mind when it's to late and then....it will be to late.

I was molested by my grandfather as a child and carried around much hatred for him for years and years. My family and I were very traumatized by what happened and it literally tore our extended family apart. In my early 20's I started having anxiety attacks and dreams about him and in my dreams he was dying or dead. I got to a point where I felt I had to either forgive this man or I was just going to go insane from all the hatred I carried for him. so I went to their house knocked on the door and when he answered, this decrepit, tiny, shriveled shell of the man he used to be it took my breath away because I always remembered him like he looked when I was a child. I was shocked. (He had parkinsons and was very sick with cancer as well.) He looked confused, like he was seeing a ghost and he said "amanda?" I asked him if he was sorry and he burst into tears and told me that from the bottom of his heart he was so sorry for what he did to us kids. I couldn't handle it I was bawling and I just left, then for Christmas I sent him a card with the words "I forgive you" and nothing else. A few months later my Mother told me that she had this feeling that she needed to forgive him, (it had been 15 years) and I told her what I did...blah blah blah and we went together and I told him to his face that I forgave him and then a year later he succumbed to the cancer and parkinsons and died but I truly feel like I did the right thing. It made me feel good to let it go and to give him some peace. Even though I didn't owe him anything. I know I did the right thing and I feel better now, knowing that his soul departed this earth with just a little bit of peace. So, I guess I'm saying, you should tell your friend to go see the man, forgive him and give him just a little peace, It may be upsetting for her now, but down the road maybe she will look back and have peace herself knowing that she too did the right thing. you can't change what has happened in the past, you can only move forward.

The only thing Nancy Toby is that 30 is still pretty young. Wouldn't it be awful if she got somewhat older (and wiser) and then felt that regret? Wouldn't it be better to deal with this now, and then she'd know, for sure, for herself, that SHE did the right thing. What's the point of holding on to anger? When you said "he blew it", it made me think of "anger" and that's no way to live. This also isn't about "him" but her.

She allowed him to come and see her, once. I think they had lunch. She told him she held no ill-will towards him, but that, out of respect to her father - the man who had raised her - she didn't want to persue a relationship with her bio father. I think he still sends letters, and maybe she sends him a card at Christmas. He is old, and sick, and she feels she did the exact right amount for her to feel good about it. He obviously wanted more, but she did the amount she was comfortable with.

Your friend just has to figure out what level she's comfortable living with, since she's the one who's going to be living with it. He's dying, so the impact to him will be quite small. It's HER who is going to carry this around the rest of her life. She just needs to dig deep and see what she can really live with.

If she has the means to travel, and she isn't angry any longer, maybe the trip would be okay. But as the abandoned child, it's up to her.

Not helpful, am I? I do know that my mother has no regrets about her situation with her bio-father. Your friend just needs to do some serious soul-searching to make sure she won't, either.

As a therapist, I've sat with a few people through similar situations. All of them are hard, but for most people I'd say go..do it..see him one last time. But don't do it for him, do it for yourself. Any feelings or things you have wanted to say..say 'em, good or bad.

In my experience, those who choose not to do so, which is a legitimate choice, end up regretting NOT doing it. Just from a grief perspective, it's helpful to see a person one last time for closure. Seeing him one last time might actually be the thing that allows her to put this in the past and not to wonder "what if I had..."

This is the information we have about her feelings toward her sperm donor: "She doesn't feel she needs any closure with him and that any suffering he is enduring now is of his own making."

If she doesn't feel a need, then she probably won't feel any huge regret later. I don't see that he's ever - in abusing her mother and ignoring her for 30 years - merited the gift of a cross-country trip and some kind of act of forgiveness from her.

She could regret spending the money and taking the time, too. If she feels a twinge of regret later on, I don't see that as an overwhelming thing. We all have minor regrets in our lives, and this should by rights be a minor one if she has it at all.

I say to do it.Sometimes things are not always how they seem. I don`t at all meant to imply that your friend could be in a similar situation, but here is my experience.

I was told all through my childhood how my father was this awful guy who tried to control my mother, and who was just "weird" - not letting her touch his food, etc. I was told that he basically abandoned us, and refused to have anything to do with me, so on and so forth.

As an adult I recently finally found out the truth - that my mother cheated on him with all his friends, sold his stuff to get spending money, would leave me at home alone all day while she was out with a boyfriend (before I was 9 months old)...

All this time, I was led to believe that my father had been the instigator in this. It was only after I cut off contact with my mother (for a totally unrelated reason) that everyone wanted to tell me the truth of what had happened. That my father had tried to keep her living with him, even if they had to have separate sides of the house so that I would be safe, etc.

Of course, mother knows best, so I don`t think he was ever considered for custody. And to be honest I think that he just wanted to put my mother behind him. I know that I would in a similar situation. It was probably easier to know that I was safe being cared for by my grandparents.

I desperately want to re-establish contact with my father - if nothing else to tell him that I`m not like my mother. She spent years telling him that I was "just like her" and that I hated him, without a base in reality. But living in Japan while he is in the US has made this pretty much impossible. He has a fairly common name, so I have no means to find a phone number.

If, 3 years ago, I`d gotten a call telling me he was dying I wouldn`t have thought much of it. But knowing this now I would have seriously regretted it. You never know what you`ll find out, and I would consider it better to be safe than sorry.

Perhaps, if your friend is "ok" with where she is, and she can afford it, both financially and emotionally, she should go - for him. Sometimes kindness isn't about you at all, but about putting someone else first. How could she regret holding a dying man's hand for a little while, if it gives him peace?

I would like to say a couple of things. First, there are two sides to every story, and in this case the person telling your friend about the abuse is her mother. I am assuming she's never heard the father's side? I'm sure her mother is telling the truth, and I don't think this is the time to ask about it or to bring it up, I just wanted to throw that out there, that the only two people who know for certain (unless there were medical records or the like) what happened, and the exact dynamics in the home at that time are the mother and biological father of this young lady.

Certainly its up to her if she'd like to see him, but... you cannot "un-ring" the bell. If he dies without her seeing him, she cannot get the opportunity back again. And there is a good deal of growth we do over a lifetime. Perspectives change. She may change later in perspective and truly wish she had that opportunity back again. I would go, if it was me, simply because I'd never have the opportunity again.

Also, I would really want to know, in her place, about my extended family on my bio father's side, and about their health history as well.